NEW YORK — With the lockout ending, the NHL is all about saying hello again. Leave it to the Toronto Maple Leafs to go against the grain and say goodbye.

The firing of general manager Brian Burke on Wednesday does also bring about an introduction of sorts, as Burke's top lieutenant, Dave Nonis, moves up. Nonis, though, won't have time for pleasantries as he works with coach Randy Carlyle to finalize Toronto's roster in an abbreviated training camp, and hit the ground running for a shortened season.

New Toronto Maple Leafs GM Dave Nonis, left, with MLSE president Tom Anselmi, has his work cut out for him. (AP Photo)

The idea of firing Burke makes enough sense. The Maple Leafs were, after all, the only team in the league not to make the playoffs between the 2004-05 and 2012-13 lockouts, with the last four seasons of failure coming on Burke's watch. He gets a pass for the first couple, given the mammoth task of trying to transform a catastrofarce of a roster whose top three scorers were Jason Blake, Nik Antropov and Matt Stajan, and whose goaltender was the immortal (in blooper reels for giving up a length-of-the-ice goal) Vesa Toskala. There has not been enough improvement to make Burke's ouster an outrage, but there had been no rumors of an imminent change, which, given the phalanx of reporters covering the Maple Leafs, made it all the more remarkable that it came out of the blue.

"I know I was shocked when I heard the news," Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis said after the NHL Board of Governors meeting where the new collective bargaining agreement was ratified by ownership. "I wish Brian the best. ... I don't know the details, I've just been in meetings. ... Everyone's pretty shocked about it."

Gillis, who replaced Nonis as the GM in Vancouver in 2008, will not be shocked when he hears his Toronto counterpart's voice on the other end of a phone call. The Maple Leafs are widely considered the favorites to pull off a trade for former gold medalist Roberto Luongo, and Nonis' appointment will only further that speculation. But there's a catch.

"To turn around and gut the franchise now would set us back a long way," Nonis said at a press conference in Toronto.

Nonis must decide quickly how much he is willing to give up in order to get Luongo, and whether it is worthwhile to enter a bidding war -- the always aggressive Philadelphia Flyers are reported to be interested. Whatever Nonis does will be a defining moment for his tenure. Burke made a big splash early in his reign by trading two first-round picks and a second-rounder for Phil Kessel. While Kessel has been a 30-goal scorer in each of his three seasons in Toronto, the first of the first-round picks wound up being No. 2 overall, and the Bruins got Tyler Seguin. The other lottery pick became top defense prospect Dougie Hamilton.

Burke's mistake was making a win-now move when the Leafs were nowhere near in position to go for the gusto. While Nonis inherits a better roster than his predecessor, there is a notable dropoff in forward talent after Kessel, Mikhail Grabovski and Joffrey Lupul, and the same can be said of the defense corps after Dion Phaneuf and Jake Gardiner. Upgrading in net from James Reimer to Luongo could be enough to get Toronto to the playoffs for the first time since 2004, but it won't result in the Leafs lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1967. Championship teams are much deeper than what Nonis has to work with. The Leafs could get there once some solid prospects develop, like 2012 first-round pick Morgan Rielly. By the time that happens, Reimer should be in his prime.

It is hard to know what to make of Reimer, though, because a concussion limited him to 34 games last season. He wound up posting a .900 save percentage and 3.10 goals against average, but those numbers were .912 and 2.58 in 10 games before the injury. If he gets back on track, he can still develop into the top-notch goaltender that any contender needs, and without the Leafs shipping talent to Vancouver that they can barely afford to lose.

Reimer's concussion brings up another issue that Nonis must address: the way the Leafs deal with head injuries. When Reimer got hurt, the public confirmation that it was a concussion came from his mother rather than the team, which initially called it whiplash. Those problems have continued this season in the AHL, with Gardiner and Nazem Kadri suffering head injuries that were dealt with in a questionable manner, most notably Kadri playing on the power play after he took a flying elbow to the head.

The biggest issue for Nonis to confront, though, may be changing the way Toronto does business. Under Burke, the Leafs could've flexed their financial muscle by giving out front-loaded deals to free agents who could help speed a turnaround. They didn't. While the new CBA outlaws such deals, there are always opportunities for rich clubs to use their cash-flow for competitive gain.

One such opportunity will come this summer, when every team in the NHL will have the ability to buy out two contracts without a salary cap penalty. Doing so, though, would mean cutting a big check to the dumped player, and it would be good business for the Leafs to trade for a buyout candidate as part of a bigger deal, doing another team a favor to get a more favorable package for himself.

That is the name of the game, after all, and Nonis does not have much time to get back into it or get the Leafs back on track.